Note 57 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 2)

The elaborate fine made at Leicester, June 31, 1176,57 has an important bearing on the Bassets' Leicestershire possessions. Not only does it specify the lands they held at Swinford (with Walcote), Ashby, and Fleckney, but it mentions their fee of Madeley, Staffordshire. Now the descent of this Staffordshire fee can be traced by charters on the same roll.58 One of these (No. 12) is a confirmation, by Robert de Stafford, of Madeley to Geoffrey Ridel, to be held as his 'antecessores' had held it. This was Geoffrey, son of Richard Basset, by Maud Ridel, as is shown by the fact that the first witness to the charter is Hervey de Stretton, who held two knights' fees of Stafford in 1166,59 and that another is Robert Bagot, who held a quarter of a fee,60 while Geoffrey Ridel himself then held one, namely, Madeley.61 But the enrolling scribe confused him with his (maternal) grandfather and namesake (d. 1120), and thus wrongly assigned this charter to the reign of Henry I, and threw the whole descent into utter confusion. The right clue is found in a charter of Robert 'de Toni' (i.e. de Stafford), 'conceding' Madeley to Robert 'de Busa' (alias 'de Busci'), 'per servitium unius militis'.62 This fee, therefore, must have come to the Bassets with the rest of the Buci estates; and we thus learn that this must have been late in the reign of Henry I, for the names of the witnesses to this charter prove that it must be subsequent to 1122.63